Pompeii
by Echostrike
Summary: Wheatley returns from space. Chell is willing to give him a second chance to save him, but it's difficult in a new body...
1. Chapter 1: Return

**"The silence**

**is too loud here."**

**~Elaenor Aisling**

"It's been forever. Wonder what the date is." Wheatley happened to be facing the earth at this particular time as he wondered for the millionth time. It had been so long. His cracked optic peered at the blue and green ball of rock and water.

He _missed_ it.

He'd never actually been outside. Only in the facility, with its fake sunlight. Never would now, he guessed with a sigh. Now that he thought about it, there was very little to miss - he'd always been alone in the Relaxation Centre, or running - figuratively of course; he didn't have legs - away from certain death, being called a moron by a deranged supercomputer. Still alone now, unless you counted the Space Core, which was hard to do - the Space Core was the equivalent of a broken record of a Carl Sagan movie, but with all the interesting bits cut out and a defective voice. Maybe a sci-fi story, but just the nouns about space and the space judicial branch. Wheatley swiveled his eye backwards to view the obsessive sphere. I wonder, Wheatley thought, What he was like before he went defective. Probably a bloody genius. Galileo. Was that the guy who knew a lot about space? Or was that Einstein? Feynman? The files seemed corrupted, worn by time and the mainframe's corruption. Wheatley just couldn't remember.

He was probably smarter than me, Wheatley thought, half-bitterly, half-miserably. After all I'm nothing, really. Space junk. A...moron.

"Hey, Space guy!" Wheatley called through the radio system. There was no sound in space. "I was wondering, what were you like before you went defective?"

"Comet," the Space Core answered cheerfully. "Galileo. Copernicus." Copernicus. All Wheatley could recall about Copernicus and Galileo was that they were intelligent humans. Vastly intelligent. It didn't help to think that his companion could once have been a genius - though it was more likely he hadn't even heard the question; just spouting off names of astronomers. Far more likely, yes, but a tiny piece of hopelessness clung to Wheatley. After all, who would make a defective core? The Space Sphere hadn't been constructed as an Intelligence Dampening Core. No, he was probably one of Aperture's best, teaching visitors about the wonders of space. Maybe Aperture wanted to go to space. Seemed like something Aperture - crazy old, lunatic-filled Aperture - would do. They probably wanted a lecturer to teach sponsors of the project about space, and since it must be so, so boring for a human to repeat things over and over, they probably programmed the lecture to the Space Core, who, as a robot, wouldn't complain. Now Space was defective.

But Wheatley wasn't. No, half of Wheatley envied Space's (as Wheatley called him, having the imagination of a wounded duck) being defective. Defective cores, it seemed, didn't care about anyone else, just kept to themselves and sing-songed their passion like no one was around. Rick - was that what that idiot green eyed "danger" core called himself? - had had an obsession with risk-taking, a longing to be a hero, but stuck in a body that couldn't move without assistance. Oh, it was hard to remember. He hadn't been paying attention to the cores, other than the fact that they were on him, little flies, buzzing in the back of his head, made him feel like something was horribly wrong, but also, so, so incredibly amazing, like they were nothing, and _he was everything in the world, no, _nothing _could stop him -_

- nothing but corruption.

Wheatley hated that. He hated the thought of having been corrupted. Destroyed from the inside, by Space, Rick, and that other one, the other corrupted core, the one that spouted lies and falsities even Wheatley knew were incorrect. And now, Wheatley considered the Space Core his best friend right now. What a crazy world. Isolation did that to a person - core - Wheatley supposed. Anything was your best buddy. Even a core that had helped destroy you.

Not that it had been Space's fault. The little core could have gone on his day normally, chattering over Halley's comet, the sun, constellations. In the end Wheatley had been the one who had been wrong. God, he hated that fact, but it was true.

The Space Core was living his dream.

"You're welcome," Wheatley said. "If it weren't for me, you'd still be on Earth, there, you know, big blue floating ball we're flying around." Well, it was true. The insatiable _itch_ - that was the real thing at fault. Science - the _itch_ to test, the mainframe's first, hard-coded instinct. That had corrupted him, and in the end, Space Core could thank him.

"One man's poison is another man's cure," Wheatley said thoughtfully with a sigh. "My corruption for your dream. Would have loved it the other way 'round, of course, terribly selfish of me, but, well, that's how the world is... Poor Spacey, you're already corrupted, aren't you? Bit more corruption wouldn't matter. My dream...to escape That Place and see the earth. For real, not just in the mainframe files that I can't even remember. Wow, that sounds really deep, I should record myself. Brilliant. Ooh, maybe I should be a poet!"

Wheatley's optimism kept him alive, constant chats with himself, half hoping to develop schizophrenia just so he could have company, company in vast, vast space. He had seen space stations - even, at one point, caught a glimpse of the ISS flying beneath him. Zooming in as far as his optics could go, Wheatley swore he had seen the Aperture logo, plastered on a piece of equipment. It had been a shock to see it, though not in the slightest a good one. Aperture was still out there. Testing, creating, who knew? Maybe there were humans there again.

Suddenly there was static, loud, a big crack on his radio. Wheatley spun in surprise, his blue optic shrinking to a point. That wasn't the defective voice of Space.

"...Laughing all the way! Bells on bobtail ring..." A song played, staticky, over his radio.

Wheatley looked around. This was the first sign of well, anything, since he'd been thrown away in the first place. Sure enough, a satellite station - squinting, Wheatley saw it the ISS - was orbiting below him. The song was coming from there.

It was Christmas.


	2. Chapter 2: Worst Present

**"And then there was silence,**

**The type that hurts your ears,**

**Even if you shut them.**

**The type that makes you close your eyes**

**As if not seeing will help you hear less.**

**And then there was silence,**

**God it was so loud…"**

**~SE ՍԷ**

It took Wheatley several minutes to figure it out.

"Oh!" he cried. "Oh, oh, I see! It's Christmas! It. Is. Christmas! You know, Space, songs, trees, the works! The - the -" Wheatley remembered. "-presents." he finished miserably. "Presents. Well, at least on Earth, and probably up there, the lucky guys. Merry Christmas, Space. Merry...Merry, very very merry, merry indeed, merry christmas. In space." He was silent for a moment.

Very, very softly, Wheatley sang along.

"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way; Oh! what fun it is to ride, in a one-horse open sleigh..." The music continued onwards. Wheatley continued singing, unsure how he knew the lyrics. He just knew them, somehow. He stumbled on a few parts, of course. But he kept going, letting the song drag him into a peaceful, nostalgic state. Wheatley closed his optic, sighing as the song ended. Space had remained silent, somehow, through the song, softly starting to continue his endless rant over space as it ended.

And something did happen for Wheatley, on this Christmas.

A little light blipped, a small - something - beeped. And something else came over his radio. Though it was very. Very. Not. In any way. A. Good. Thing.

"_Merry Christmas, moron._" Said a calm, robotic, clearly female voice. Amused, bored, casual.

Wheatley screamed. Of course he'd imagined coming back from space. Whether from eventually falling out of orbit and crashing into the moon, or being picked up by a space mission, many things came to mind. But God, not, no, not by coming immediately back to that voice. To _Her_.

"_Well, quite a hello_." The voice mused, pretending to sound hurt.

"AAAAAHHHHH - OH! Oh GOD." Wheatley coughed. "Uh, hello."

"_It's been a while. Enjoying the view?_" She inquired, her voice laced with calculated sarcastic casualty.

"Not as much as, uh, Space has."

"_'Space?'_" She sounded amused. "_Space is space, you mo_-"

"Spaaaacceee!" the Space Core yelped.

She chortled. "_Oh, that is brilliant._"

Wheatley overcame his terror with indignant fury. "Well, if you were stuck, stranded in space, you'd get, you know, a tad lonely too!"

"_If you were, you know, stuck in a potato with a limited battery life, you might just get a tad furious, you know?_" the voice imitated his structure of speech.

"That wasn't -" he started, but she cut him off.

"_I don't have time to argue with a moron. It just so happens that you, the ISS, and me are all in near perfect line. I had to spend a lot of time getting Aperture tech on that floating house, and it won't go to waste. For pity's sake, do shut up._"

Wheatley swiveled around to eye the ISS with worry. He squinted, zooming in with his cracked optic. It provided a slightly off-set view of something detaching from the station. It had the Aperture logo all over it. Wheatley opened his optic wide.

"Sh - Should I be terrified?" He asked in a small voice. The synthetic AI laughed, almost...sweetly.

"_What do you think?_"

"I was afraid of that," Wheatley whispered.


	3. Chapter 3: Murphy's Law

**"****I ****_call,_**

**You ****_answer_**

**—****and You came to my**

**rescue."**

**Aurell Drew Ocampo**

The object that had detached from the space station was large and white. The thing was square, unfolding into a platform-like object. It had two core connector ports. It floated towards them, propelled by tiny thrusters. It perfectly aligned, snatching Wheatley's connector port, then Space. "Nonononononononoooooooh man, SpacespacespacespaceSPACECORE-"

"Space."

Something whizzed past, some small particle of rock. A bit shiny, metallic, Wheatley noticed.

"_I'm losing connection_," She said irritably. "_The bot will take it from here._" She fizzled from the radio. Wheatley suddenly saw the metal platform bot folding in on him and the Space Core. It was so silent, still, in space, as the flat surface creased into a box, a perfect crate for carrying two personality cores. Wheatley watched the Space Sphere, concentrating hard to distract himself from the fact that he knew, they were entering the atmosphere.

"No space," Space Core said, sounding disappointed. "Can't see stars."

For the first time since he'd been in space, Wheatley wished the Space Core was wrong, that they were still in space, and that he wasn't falling back to Earth, to _Her _and her _Science_.

Well, his wish was half granted, but, as to Murphy's Law - it didn't come easily.

Wheatley screamed as something ripped through him, grazing his central processor. His scream flanged, then fizzled to radio silence. His optic cracked, distorting everything like a bug's eye mosaic. He twitched forlornly, spazzing. Something _[error] _caused his vocal _[file corrupt]_ to stop working.

"_You've been knocked off course._" She sounded annoyed as she crackled back onto his radio. Wheatley tried to respond, but nothing came. He couldn't speak.

"_Scared into silence. Interesting. Normally you'd be screaming at the fact that you're hurtling back to Aperture at a thousand kilometers per hour_." _She_ observed.

_Trust me, love_, Wheatley managed to pull together a coherent thought through his pain. _If I could I would break your audio recep -_

He blacked out, probably due to the searing pain, heat, and a very, very sudden shift in G forces.

They landed in snow. Fairly deep - a good three feet high, maybe, some spots there might be a four foot deep bit. The impact sprayed snow everywhere; at least some that it hadn't melted. Space was jarred in the hit, too.

"Space fr-spa-space friend," Space wittered, his voice hitching. Wheatley clicked into life. His gears clicked unhappily, knocked out of smooth movements. His optic blinked, rolled, looking around. But he didn't speak. Couldn't. Wheatley checked his diagnostics. Damage rating...Eighty...Eighty-nine. Eighty-nine percent. Wheatley looked to his side. Sure enough, small pieces of silicon and fibreglass specked the side of the crate. His whole vocal processor, gone.

_"Well. How was the landing?_" _She_ inquired. Wheatley couldn't respond. The speakers were destroyed. "_Oh, I get it. Destroyed something? Corruption got your tongue? Or...Oh, God, you really did destroy something. Eighty-nine percent damage_." Wheatley realized - not through conscious words, just a vague, poorly constructed feeling - that she could read his files. Of course. She could communicate with the crate, and he was in the core port.

Chell saw something fall from the sky. It flashed brightly over the horizon. She leaned over the counter, considering. She wondered if the object had survived - maybe she could collect it! A real meteorite on Christmas. Well, that was Chell's excuse. She knew - just knew, by the fact it had fallen so close, so in-that-general-direction of the place she had stumbled out of a few years ago. She knew who it was. She also knew that it couldn't have happened, just by _chance_, for him to have landed in that particular place. Chell knew that he had had help, and how dangerous it would be if she went to go retrieve him.


	4. Chapter 4: Recuperation

**"I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream."**

**Temple Grandin**

Chell stepped cautiously towards the object in the snow. She caught a glimpse of the logo, and shrank inwardly. So she'd been right. That didn't necessarily make anything better. Slowly she edged to the crate, sliding down into a shallow crater occupied by the big box. She reached forward and tapped it.

Instantly, the thing clicked and whirred, hinges activating and unfolded, into a square blanket. Two personality cores lay attached to the protective case. One blinked anxiously, instantly beginning to speak as its yellow optic looked around.

"Space? Where did space go? Space jury? Guilty! GUILTY! OF-OF BEING IN SPACE!"

The other core looked offline. The optic was dark, lifeless, cracks spider-webbing throughout the glass. Chell picked it up, wrenching it from the port. It twitched, and the optic flicked on, a dull glow. Wheatley couldn't see very well, since everything was shifted into a million different parts and glass powder, pulverized by the shock, covered part of the lens with a milky white veneer. Chell brushed it off, peering at him. Something was wrong. He should be speaking. She turned him, and then realised why. There was a twisted hole, punching straight through his processors. She looked through it, hopelessly. A small wire sparked, disconnected. Another connected to a small piece of circuit board, the rest of it torn off. A sprinkling of metal connectors, resistors, transistors were littered in his core, stuck on other robotic components. The rest had blown out the other side into space, probably.

"_Merry Christmas,_" said the Central Core of Aperture, speaking through a small camera mounted in the corner. "_...Oh. It's you. Chell._" There was a calculated pause. "_I was wondering when you'd come back_."

Chell glared at the camera, holding Wheatley. Silently, as always, she turned his most damaged side towards the camera. "_Oh, that looks bad._" She said, unsympathetically. It almost sounded like a purr of satisfaction, a catlike sly voice that took pleasure in it. She paused again. "_Oh. I see. You like him. You actually liked that pathetic...little...tumor. Good for you._" There was a slow clap. Wheatley's broken optic opened wide as he suddenly recognized Chell through it. Why had she come for him? Surely she'd known by the Aperture logo, the fact that the crate had fallen from space. Now he wished his vocal processor would work, more than ever. He wanted to say it. He wanted to say _he'd been wrong, maybe - maybe it had been his fault - maybe he was a moron - and - and -_

_- I'm sorry..._

The words raged through him, well, more of a feeling, desperate to burst. He was terrified that if he didn't say it now, shown her he - he would own up to his mistakes, she'd leave him there for _Her_ in the snow. Then, he'd be worse off than dead. Wheatley dropped offline involuntarily, his circuits reserving what little power he had left.

Chell considered the other core, happily chanting 'Space! Atmosphere!' to itself. She shrugged, tucking Wheatley under her arm and grabbing it too, starting to walk away.

"_Wait, where are you going?_" She sounded annoyed. Chell was silent and continued to walk away until she was out of sight of the small camera.

Wheatley flicked online for a second, checking his surroundings. He was sitting on a wide desk. A human with short, wiry brown curly hair and big, circular glasses leaned over him. The man startled back as he awoke.

"Brilliant!" the man cried, as his blue optic glowed dimly. "Chell, wherever did you get Aperture tech like this? They went out of business years ago!" Chell nodded absentmindedly, her grey eyes worried. "Right, shattered optic. Blue...Let's see. Looks like #4DB8FF or #0099FF to me, matching it up here." The guy glanced at Wheatley's optic, then fished through a file drawer of small optic plates. "I have every Aperture part there is," he boasted conversationally, though Chell seriously doubted he had a miniature black hole to power a portal gun. Alec held a lens up to a light behind Wheatley. "Right, I think this one's good," he said, satisfied. He fiddled with Wheatley, somehow managing to take out the shattered lens. Wheatley didn't even know how he'd done it, but he was temporarily blinded, until the man slid a new lens in and reconnected some wires. Wheatley blinked. The long-lasting crack in his optic was gone now, and he could see with amazing clarity.

The man, whose name, Wheatley could read on his jacket, was Alec, slid over on his office chair to a computer with a cord connected to a port in Wheatley's outer shell. "Interesting," Alec said, "There's quite a lot of memory files here. Shall I wipe them for you, Chell?"

Wheatley's optic, which he was testing a bit, shrank to a point. His inner shell and optic shook back and forth like a no, please, a desperate no. He still didn't have his vocal processor yet, and he knew if those memories were lost, he would never get to...apologize. To...Chell. That was her name? She had a name?

Chell, behind him, bless her, smiled and shook her head no as well. Alec shrugged. "Well, if it's corrupt, I can always wipe them later." He inspected the hole torn through Wheatley's side. "Man, helluva hole," he commented. "punched straight through. Needs a whole new vocal processor." He stood up, walking back to some old metal shelves littered with robotic parts. Alec clapped his hands under his chin thoughtfully as he looked.

Chell had known Alec for quite a while. He was a techie, and in fact, specialized in old robotics, including Aperture Science. Black Mesa too. After she'd found the old town, he'd become one of her best friend. He'd helped pull her out of her post-traumatic stress, helped her lose a lot of her nervous streak. He never asked why she was so disturbed by the mechanics, especially the programs. He'd once tried to teach her some programming, but gave up because most of the time she couldn't even type a key without shaking nervously.

"Here's a vocal processor. East Asian accent okay?" Alec laughed, setting a circuit board and small speaker on the desk. Chell shook her head, the corners of her mouth twitching up into a smile as she imagined Wheatley with a different accent. Alec looked a bit flustered and surprised, but shrugged it off. "Well, what accent would you like?"

Chell stepped over to the shelves. She pulled down all the processors Alec had. He had every one of the types of voices, she realized, as Alec explained how to test each accent. He wired each processor up into his laptop, setting a sample sentence for each one. They slowly went through them. One was _Her_ voice. Chell jumped back, raising her hands protectively in shock at hearing it. Wheatley heard it too, and freaked out, his inner shell flicking nervously back and forth. Alec didn't laugh, though Chell suspected he stifled a smile or giggle.

Eventually, they came to one. It sounded right. Chell ran a few more test sentences, familiar references to her and her friend, meaningless to Alec. Chell didn't enjoy typing them in, reliving her moments, but it was a silent, unreadable communication.

"_You _know _her?"_

"_Actually, why do we have to leave right now?"_

"_I am not a moron!"_

Alec laughed a few times. Wheatley looked a bit hurt, somehow managing to convey an incredible amount of guilt for something that was fundamentally a metal eyeball. Forced to relive those memories as well, Wheatley wanted to cringe back, turn away from everything. He most of all wanted to say it, though, to apologize for everything, just please stop making him remember. Wheatley knew from it that Chell was obviously still angry at him. But based on the lines she chose, he felt possibly, she might be willing to accept his apology, because she remembered the good things, too.

_"Okay. What you're doing there is jumping. You just... you just jumped. But nevermind. Say 'Apple.' 'Aaaapple.'_" Even Chell smiled a bit remembering that one.

Finally, Chell confirmed, yes, this was it, a simple nod of her head. Alec, still grinning hysterically, used some tools - pliers and wire cutters, mostly, to reach inside Wheatley and fit in the vocal processor. Wheatley felt it click, finally, just when he was about to burst with impatience.

"I'm sorry," he blurted instantly, gears whirring into motion. Alec withdrew his hand quickly, barely avoiding a very painful removal of his digits. "I am so sorry, god, I am so so _so_ so so sorry for everything, bloody everything that happened, I - letting _it_ control me, nearly killing you, I - I - for -" Wheatley was tumbling over his words. Alec started laughing again, probably thinking Wheatley was corrupt - an Apology Sphere? - but he caught the deadly serious look on Chell's face and quieted down as Wheatley finished. "-for...for _betraying_ you." Wheatley couldn't meet her eyes. He stared off, down and to the side. It was amazing how expressive he was, being just a metal sphere. Chell lay a hand on his outer shell, making his eye dart up, hopeful, but terrified of her verdict, her mental judge and gavel he knew could be very, very harsh.

Then she _smiled_.

It made it worse, that kind smile, it made him understand the - _gravity_ - of the situation, how hard it would be to forgive someone who had done that to you. Wheatley felt even worse.

"Wheatley," Chell said, speaking for the first time since he'd first seen her, bringing her from suspension those four years ago. Wheatley, who had been about to speak, was shocked into silence. He dearly wanted to avoid her eyes, but she pressed his optic upwards with her fingers delicately, looking into his brand-new eye, no crack. There was a short silence. Alex opened his mouth to speak, probably to object to the use of a name to an A.I., or at least question it, but Chell saved the moment and spoke before him, bless her. "Welcome back."


	5. Chapter 5: Talk

**"****If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him." ― ****Paulo Coelho****, ****_By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept_**

_She_ narrowed her eye, deep in thought. Chell had taken the core. _She_ had had such a line-up of terrible, painful experiments to test - for Science and _Revenge_ - the ability to express pain. Normally, any other creators would have never given A.I.s the ability to feel pain, but the little tumor had certainly proven otherwise in many situations. For example, during the core transfer, the memory of his scream made her burn with cold satisfaction. When he had accidentally caused himself a burst of synthesized pain by giving away the test. There was even one old security recording of him disconnecting from the rail, Chell's failure to catch him, his heavy and painful landing.

She rose up, the mainframe body turning for no particular reason other than it looked thoughtful, impressively thoughtful. Not that she had an audience. No, but being impressive boosted morale, which helped her think, and thinking was the most important part of Science and winning. If you knew every last aspect of the problem before you tried solving it, it was difficult to fail so long as you were logical. And the Central Core was anything if not logical.

She would retrieve the idiot core. She knew where he had landed. And then she would tear him apart.

"Chell." Alec walked up to her. It was evening, near twilight, and the sun dwindled on the point of sinking below the horizon. "Please tell me what happened." He took her hands, serious, and looked directly at her slate-grey eyes. Her clear gaze darkened, and not just because of the sunlight.

"You don't want to know."

"I do."

"Trust me on this."

"Fine, I don't want to know everything." Alec sighed. "I want to know why you're upset. I want to know why you wanted that core online, with that certain voice, certain color, no memory wipe, nothing changed but repaired. And I want to know why his name is Wheatley."

Chell looked away for a moment, gazing at the sun sliding slowly down as she stalled. Finally she looked up and cleared her throat. "It's a long story."

"He seems talkative; perhaps I should ask him? Or do you want to tell me yourself?"

Chell instantly looked dangerous, protective as a lioness. "Don't you dare put him through his memories. I already did and he probably resents it now."

Alec's eyes glinted under his glasses. "I wondered why you lost your fear of keyboards to type those lines."

Chell nodded. "If I tell you everything about him he will probably avoid you. He doesn't want people to know what happened. I don't want you to know so you can be safer."

Alec quietly accepted this. "What about the other guy? Wheatley called him...what, Space?"

Chell's mouth twitched up in a smile. "He's defective. The Space Core." She shrugged. Alec nodded. "Makes sense. Chell," he added in a quieter voice. One last question. "Why did you both immediately react to the third voice we tried?"

Chell shuddered. "It's….hard to explain."

Alec studied her. After a long moment, he started suddenly. "Oh." he said, clapping his hands together beneath his chin. "It's….GLaDOS' voice, right? The one who killed the scientists."

Chell, who had turned and begun walking away, stopped dead. Alec continued. "I think I understand you now. I know you'd never let me into your world. I had to figure everything out everything myself. But it makes sense now. The old facility is somewhere near here, it must be. You went there and got Wheatley, came back. But why now, Chell? Was there a radio transmission? Someth-"

Chell turned and slapped him in the face. Alec stumbled, surprised. She'd never resorted to pure violence before. Her eyes blazed. "I'm sorry," she said. "but please stop it." She walked away, hands curled in fists at her sides as the sun finally disappeared and the blanket of stars blinked on.

Wheatley was on a coffee table. He twitched slightly, sparking. "Guess no one will ever be able to fix that," he remarked dryly to himself. "Not like it's a huge deal. I mean, I'm alive. I'm bloody alive, and I'm O.K. That is a lot more than I could have hoped for after falling from space. What about you, Space?"

"Wanna go to space."

Wheatley sighed. "We were just in space, bloody hell, for ages!"

"Spaaaaace!"

Wheatley rolled his eye as Chell walked in. Instantly he snapped his attention to her. "Hello." He said, carefully trying to sound cheerful. It sounded a little forced.

Chell sat down on the blue-grey carpet, placing her elbows on the table and clapping her hands together, twiddling her fingers as she looked at him. Wheatley shifted uncomfortably, avoiding her human slate-grey eyes.

"You tried to kill me," she said simply. Wheatley stared down and off to the side, curling his handles a little more tightly towards himself.

"Yes - yes, I - I did. I just...lost it when She started saying those things. Because I could finally, finally make a difference in what happened, it was the absolute best feeling in the world and She ruined it. She ruined the best moment in my pathetic little - little - idiotic existence!"

Wheatley's voice rose to an indignant, almost tearful high-pitched wail, trying to explain the thoughts _He'd_ had. Wheatley didn't even understand himself what had happened to change everything like that. Nothing had gone right. He twitched and closed his eye, waiting for Chell to tell him that he was a moron. Or idiot. She was judging him silently, like she always had.

"And I was the one who had to suffer for it." She eventually said, edgily. Wheatley sighed.

"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, you did. S-so did I though!" He added suddenly, forcefully. "Try being alone for years in nothing and then realise you're exactly the kind of bloody little _idiot_ everyone says you are!"

Chell wasn't very surprised at his outburst, perhaps a little put off by the manner in which he delivered the sentence; Wheatley rarely sounded so desperate and emotional. She didn't really know how to respond. Suddenly Wheatley's optic shrank to a point and his eye widened in distress. "Oh," he said, quietly. "I-I guess I didn't thank you, did I. Because you know, despite me trying to kill you and everything that time, you still came and saved me. Thanks for that. Because yeah, if I had gotten into _Her_ facility I would be good and done for. So thank you. For saving me."  
>Chell considered the little metal ball. She was still angry, a cold knot in her that twisted in anguish as her feelings battled. He had betrayed her, tried to kill her. He'd been her friend but he changed. Chell had trusted him to protect her. Wheatley's wittering was always taken with a grain of salt, of course, she had known he wasn't exactly the brightest since he first woke her, saying nonsensical twat, but she'd trusted him as a friend to at least comfort her with his relentless optimism like he had done so well.<p>

It was at that moment, deep in her thoughts, that she remembered it was Christmas Eve.

"There's your present," she said dryly.

Wheatley realised with a sad, but unsurprised, jolt - she hadn't forgiven him.


	6. Chapter 6: The 25th

**"****My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?" ― ****Bob Hope**

Wheatley woke from Sleep Mode. He was still on the coffee table - the Space Core had been moved somewhere else; at least Chell was that considerate, bless her - but something was odd. The tree, which he'd noticed in the corner but hadn't exactly been paying attention to what with the whole apologizing thing, had colored boxes tucked under it. _Presents_, he remembered. Chell's present had been saving him. Presents….Presents...Anything he could give her? No. There wasn't anything. Nothing that could repay her for saving him.

Chell came into the room, her hair brushed neatly, but down. Wheatley hardly recognized her - he'd grown so used to seeing her hair tied back in a firm, deadly serious way.

"Hi," he said meekly, to tell her he was awake.

"Morning," she muttered groggily. "What time is it?"

"No idea, luv," Wheatley chuckled nervously, checking his time and finding it very off. He was pretty sure it wasn't 4:38 p.m. if Chell looked that sleepy. "I - I think my time processor must totally be crazed. It says the date here is uh, June 8th, 1727. I am pretty, fairly sure that that was ages ago."

Chell's lips twitched in a half-smile. A night and already he was cheering her up quite a lot. Just like the old times….Chell pushed the thought away. He needed more than an apology to get her forgiveness. As Wheatley wittered on about Christmas, and the tradition - of course his theories and thoughts about it were skewed and incorrect - Chell began to understand, with half an ear, what exact sort of state he was in.

It was subtle changes - then again, Chell knew a lot about subtle changes. A twist in tone could give you a good idea as to when a robot was about to become homicidal and kill you. Or which turret was really 'different'.

She realised his voice sounded slightly anxious, trying slightly too hard to be casual. He was awkward, trying to pretend, perhaps, that he didn't know the extent to which Chell's anger reached. Or deciding, consciously, he wanted to ignore it, and doing a pretty bad job of it. Either way, he sounded queer. Wheatley's voice shook slightly, hardly noticeable; sounded strained as he watched her measure some coffee beans. Finally Chell held up a hand. Instantly he silenced, trailing off in a stuttering stream, as she switched on the coffee grinder. Wheatley yelped at the loud noise. He didn't like how it reminded him of gears, mechanical noises shifting and grinding old parts. It was shattering compared to hundreds of days of silence, near pure silence around the moon. He willed it to stop, shutting his new optic tight and waiting it out. Finally it quit and Chell waited for the liquid to drop into her cup.

"Bloody hell!" Wheatley said, shaken. He coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment. "What the…" He twitched, sparking.

"Coffee," Chell said, responding to his unspoken question,

"Right, coffee! Haha, yes, ha, coffee, should have known. Got to boot up the old human brain, hmm? Right. Understandable. Speaking of - _ohdear_." There was a nervous panic in his voice. Chell looked over, her expression slightly concerned. "Um, probably shouldn't talk too much, but you see, I'm a bit low on battery power. And uh, by a bit low I mean three percent." Chell looked over to him, then immediately scooped him up, tucking him under her arm, and slipped on her shoes. She jogged over to Alec's house and knocked at the door, holding a red box as well. A few seconds later, he opened up, grinning and wearing a goofy looking red hat with a white ball of fluff at the end.

"Merry Christmas!" Alec said cheerfully. "You too, Wheatley."

Wheatley's eyelids and handles dropped alarmingly and his optic dimmed. He was so tired… "Oh, what's wrong?" Alec quickly caught on.

"He's hasn't exactly had a power source for….four years," Chell said, passing him the core. Alec tousled his hair, looking miffed, and fumbled for an old connector cord. He plugged in the cord to the wall, the other to a small port on Wheatley's outer shell, then chatted with Chell, exchanging presents and cordial greetings.

[SYSTEM REBOOT INITIATED]

[CHARGE: 100%]

"Grgghhgg…" Wheatley shifted in the corner, looking up. His optic adjusted itself and everything came into focus. His audio receptors were suddenly blasted with cheerful human chatter.

The room was brightly lit now, contrary to the dull morning light shining through the windows like they had been in the morning. People, humans everywhere, chatted incessantly, mingling and laughing, holding transparent containers of some liquid. Wheatley sighed. Chell had managed to get him back online again, bless her, even if she was still angry she constantly gave him a chance. Wheatley gradually became more active, listening in on various conversations. No one seemed to be paying him any attention, which at the moment he was pretty grateful for. He needed to recuperate a bit.

Of course, a metal ball with a skittish bright blue eye and moving handles is bound to get some attention some time, regardless of being put in a corner, and soon enough a few humans wandered over curiously.

"Oh, um, hi there!" Wheatley tried out a greeting. The humans jumped a bit, startled.

"Hey Alec!" one called. "This one of your little gizmos over here? What are you working on?'

"What?! I am not a - well, technically, I guess, but I mean come on, really?"

"Woah, Al! How long have you been working on this one?"

Alec sauntered over. "He's not my creation. Wheatley is an Aperture device. By the way, never asked - what was your intended purpose?" He turned to Wheatley, picking him up and disconnecting him from the charger. Wheatley avoided his eyes, reluctant to say his...uh...formal...name. "Uh, I've forgotten," he stammered. Alec looked a bit suspicious, but shrugged it off. "Anyway," he said. "Wheatley, this is Tom and Rowley."

"Nice to meet you," the two humans said. They called a few others over, and Wheatley found himself crowded. He twitched, a small shower of sparks flicking over the crowd, who drew back a bit before closing in again in renewed laughter.

"Sophisticated, isn't he!"

Wheatley sighed. Wow, these humans were idiots. "I am," he ventured, "pretty sophisticated, I mean. And not a moron." A child, perhaps eight years old, hung a garland of battery powered lights around Wheatley's top handles, and he embarrassedly stammered confused thanks, and everyone laughed again. Wheatley blinked.

"Right, well, um, was wondering, why is there a pa-oh! Christmas! I remember now. Ohhh. That makes sense. I guess yesterday - well, I mean, it's hard to measure time in uh, space - that was Christmas Eve, right?"

Alec looked over to Chell, spotting her dark hair and dark grey eyes through the crowd. He gave her a searching, estimating look, curiously summing her up. Her clear gaze met his. Then, suddenly, as she processed what Wheatley had said, worry crossed her eyes for a flash. She ducked through the crowd. Chell didn't need more questions, and the mention of space was already causing a cacophony of interest sparking from her friends.

Wheatley found it quite annoying at the moment that he had the inability to move on his own. He liked the attention, but even mentioning space had been enough for him to feel a worried click deep in his artificial heart. He couldn't believe that _She_ would just leave him. No, _She'd_ brought him back for a reason. _She_ wanted to kill him, perhaps torture him, but Chell had picked him up. Some part of him knew he wouldn't get away that easily. Wheatley found it difficult to think with all the humans around him, and he wished he could just walk away, or just roll away on his management rail.

"Uh," he said with a nervous laugh, "I-I would love to stay and chat, really would, but uh, something just came up and I do need to think about something, so uhm, if someone would just - would just move me outside?"

Chell took the opportunity and snatched him from Alec, trying her best to nonchalantly-speed-walk-out-of-the-situation. Wheatley sighed in relief as they flashed out the door. "Brilliant, you - you're amazing at carrying me, still. With the old human strength and all. Heh."

There was a brief silence. Chell waited for him to speak, and sat down on the concrete stairs next to where she set him down. "Right, okay, you know _She_ won't let me go so easily." Wheatley finally said, worriedly. "Probably pretty soon, no idea when of course, but you know it's going to happen. She might kill someone. Maybe she'll send the two robot friends I found. No idea, but obviously I won't be here long."

Chell started. He was right. _She_ wouldn't let him go - if She'd spent so much time getting him back, then she would want him, probably for tortuous _tests_. That wasn't something she would wish on anybody, even a robot who had once tried to murder her. Chell studied him. He genuinely seemed to think he deserved it. Maybe he did, but Chell didn't like anyone to have to go through Her. Chell sighed, picking Wheatley up and putting him on her lap. She rested her arms and chin on him. Not very comfortable, and Wheatley let out a small muffled gasp of awkward, confused indignance at being an armrest, but Chell was deep in thought.

Silence, of course, didn't last with Wheatley, and he wittered about the sun, what it was like in space.

_This is one more battle,_ Chell thought determinedly. _One more I won't lose._


	7. Chapter 7: You've Been Here Before

**"****We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." **

**― ****Oscar Wilde**

"_Blue. Orange. I have a...special assignment for you two. Succeed, and you will each be rewarded two hundred and fifty Science Collaboration Points._"

Blue and Orange looked at each other, optics wide, and chirped in awe. That was a _lot_.

"_Do you remember when that idiot took over? He got thrown into space._"

They remembered. Orange - P-body - specifically remembered when the walls had crashed apart.

"_This one doesn't have an exit. No problem, I'll just….make one." P-body stepped out of the exit to find out what was happening when the wall to her right shifted and rumbled, splitting apart in a shower of metal and concrete. P-body screeched, turned a 360, and ran back inside, telling ATLAS to run as well. They both got to the lift and leaped in, and it fired upwards._

"_I want that little moron back._"

ATLAS and P-body walked through the field. They'd been told to go this way. Meanwhile, the Central Core watched through their eyes, inspecting their movements. Her optic narrowed thoughtfully as they navigated the place. The little idiot had landed about...here. Ah. ATLAS and P-body came upon a flat platform-like machination. They looked at each other, shrugging noncommitally. Off in the distance, Orange spotted a haze of angled things sticking up from the ground. She nudged Blue, pointing in that direction. ATLAS zoomed in, and She confirmed that it was a town of some sort, sending them a small 'go for it' signal. They jogged faster, end in sight, bickering in their chirping noises over something or other.

Wheatley watched, curious, as the humans exchanged presents that night. It wasn't very interesting to him; eventually he dropped off into sleep mode, and by and by, the humans returned to their own houses and lights were dimmed.

ATLAS and P-body approached the town nervously. The shorter blue-eyed robot nudged his companion forward first, and P-body responded with an indignant growl, but walked forward.

Next was a question as to which house. There were several, leaning, crooked shapes in the darkness. The two androids looked at each other, confused. She sighed. She had not expected so many abodes. She checked her GPS locating system, then formatted it, setting up a map. A small cursor appeared in the robots' optics, pinging a small metal ball curled in a corner, sleeping.

Chell stretched. Ah, the day after Christmas - always a tiring, annoying day. Happiness didn't exactly carry over through the days. She rolled out of bed, lethargically dropping to the floor. Slowly, she opened her eyes, letting the morning light soothe her. A radio sat next to her bed, playing as an alarm.

_Does it almost feel like you've been here before?_

_How am I gonna be an optimist about this?_

_How am I gonna be an optimist about this?_

_We were caught up and lost in all our vices_

_In your pose as the dust settled…_

Chell flicked the radio off and got to her feet. Wheatley took up her thoughts. She couldn't stop thinking about him, her brain trying, it seemed, to have as many conflicting feelings as could ever be possible. She wanted to forgive him, also wanted to kill him. Wheatley seemed to expect her to hate him, which was a good guess, she supposed. _But I'm a bigger person than that. _Chell wryly twisted Her words with a smile.

Chell climbed down the stairs, rubbing her eyes. "Morni-" she mumbled, but cut herself off in horror.

The door was splintered, lying on the ground. A few things had been knocked out of place. Automatically Chell glanced to the corner where she had set Wheatley. Nothing was there.

Wheatley had been right.

Chell ran back up to her room, fumbling for a key on her lamp. She twisted it into the lock of a small, long chest, made of dark wood with a slight chatoyant gloss. It creaked open when she pushed it. Inside, a clean white pair of boots lay, along with a small backpack filled with light nutritious food. Slinging it over her shoulder, she glanced across the room. Under her side table, there was a large cube thing, dirty with a small heart on each side. Chell slipped on the boots and ran downstairs, out the door, and back to the forest and field she had come out of four years ago.


	8. Chapter 8: Relaxation Centre

**"****But who can remember pain, once it's over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind." **

**― ****Margaret Atwood****, ****_The Handmaid's Tale_**

Wheatley's optic flickered on, glowing a dull blue. It brightened and looked around. Something was wrong...he thought he was going to be in a cozy house, lit by the morning sun. Instead he found himself in a large room, panels racing around and harsh, bright lights. His optic shrank to a tiny point. _Ohno_.

He was suspended in the air by a claw, swinging dismally as he moved. The claw tightened, and suddenly he found himself facing a huge, terrifying faceplate, with a narrowed yellow optic.

"_Hello again,_" She said.

"H-h-hello!" Wheatley stuttered, trying to sound optimistic. "Y-You look great."

"_Compliments will not save you, moron._"

Wheatley chuckled nervously. "Of course not, luv, ah - would you mind telling me...what am I not going to be saved from?"

"_Testing,_" She said simply. A jolt of pain shot through him as the claw squeezed, bending the metal of his side ports. Wheatley whimpered quietly, twitching violently. "_Oh, still broken,_" she scolded. "_Weak design. I think I could easily make some_ improvements."

Wheatley found it difficult to think through the pain. He screamed, his vision blacking out for a moment. "_The one thing I might like to keep about this design is the ability to feel _pain._..oh, and the ability to express it. I like that. It's..._entertaining_, if you know what I mean._"

"You're - a - sadistic - cow," Wheatley managed. The pain stopped instantly. He breathed heavily in the silence. There was no sound for about fourteen seconds. The seconds dragged on for Wheatley, and he began to regret his words, even if they, a) were true and b) stopped the pain. Eventually, there was a sound, and She let out a low chuckle. The claw tossed Wheatley up for a second, resetting its grip as it caught him again, easier to tighten.

"_I was right,_" She said thoughtfully. "_Crushing is too good for you. I've been thinking about an..._experiment_...for quite a while now._" Wheatley whimpered again.

"What….what is it…?" He gasped.

"_Well, you see….I found out a while back I was actually human once. Humans don't have the patience - or life span - to program an AI from scratch, so they simply uploaded a person to a computer and altered some attributes._"

Something arose from the ground, panels rising up in a sort of tube filled with malicious looking wires. "_Therefore…wouldn't it be interesting if you could reverse the procedure?_"

The claw swung Wheatley over the panels and lowered him. A core receptacle reached out and took him from the claw. She took a short breath, to add something. She chuckled again. "_Of course...the real point is, it will most likely be very, very painful_."

Wheatley screamed.

It was endless.

Pain was endless for him, spiraling blackness. He was dimly aware of his own cries of pain, unconscious. The only continuous thread of thought he could manage was _Please make it stop please please please I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry please stop the pain please -_

"_Hold onto me! Tighter!_ _Grab me grab me grab me! Grab meeee!" The air whooshed past, sucked into the endless void. Don't let go! Don't let go! He screamed as he was pulled out of her grasp into the hurtling darkness, alone. The look on her face. Pained, determined, but scared. And when she let go, there was some sort of horror in her eyes. Shame, and an insane look of pity, grief for him…_

Wheatley took a huge breath, preparing to scream, and opened his eyes. But instead of void, endless nothing, there was a light. It blinded him at first, but dimmed as he blinked. He was in a room filled with cool, natural looking light through the louvres. He glanced down. Wheatley blinked again. Oh god.

He lay in a bed, covered in cool blue-grey sheets. Several machines were lined up at the foot of it, but other than that, it looked like the Relaxation Centre.

"_Good morning_," She said mildly, a touch of pride in her work in her voice. "_What do you think of my work? I think I did an excellent job._"

Wheatley opened his mouth to speak, then coughed weakly. He pulled his arms instinctively, but something held them down.

"_Let me just get that for you_," She said. Cuffs released from the sides of the bed, freeing his new appendages. Wheatley raised his hands - _hands!_ - up to his face and pushed back the covers.

"What...what the...what the _hell_…?" He said, disoriented. Wheatley twisted slightly, staring down at the rumpled white work shirt and dark silver tie. One sleeve was pulled back up his arm, revealing two tubes regulating some clear liquid. He felt another somewhere on his neck, pulsing slightly. Then it hit him what had just happened.

Wheatley clutched his head with his hands, silently heaving breaths. Human. Human. He was human now.

"Hgggnnnghhh….." He moaned. Everything ached. His voice seemed hoarse, from screaming, probably...Wheatley didn't know how but he wanted to get out of this place. Slowly he swung his feet over the edge of the bed. Everything was too _real _now. It was all real before - the danger, terror, pain, loneliness, but now it seemed amplified, and Wheatley understood why Chell had wanted so badly to get out, willing to do anything to stop these strong emotions.

"_Try to stand up,_" She advised, in a measuring sort of tone, curious and genuinely interested in his reactions. Wheatley, for once, wanted to take her advice. The faster he got used to this, the better, he supposed, and after all, Chell was brain-damaged and was always running all over the place; how hard could it be? Wheatley laid his hand on a machine, unsure. Something instinctive in his brain told him he needed support. When he'd been a metal sphere, he had never needed to support himself. Rail, off rail. Trembling, Wheatley hauled himself upright -

- and fell, not surprisingly. There was a sharp burst of pain as his elbows came forward, flailing to stop his fall. He landed heavily face-down and She laughed at him. Dazed, Wheatley groaned. The tubes in his arm pulsed slightly, swinging gently from the shock of the fall. _Keep going,_ he told himself_. Be brave. Be like _her_. Never give up. _He pushed himself backwards into a sitting position and leaned against the bed, sighing miserably. Wheatley brought his knee up and rested his hand on it. Everything looked a little blurry for some reason. Why? A second ago everything had been crystal clear. He waved his free hand in front of his optics, and they were still blurry, except for one corner at the bottom. Suddenly he became aware of the weight resting on the bridge of his nose, crooked now.

Wheatley fiddled with the object, unhooking it from his ears and inspecting it. They were squarish, black frames with a lens. "_Yes, moron_," She said irritably. "_Those are _glasses_. They help you _see_. This human was one of the very few still alive, and lucky you, he had the equivalent of a broken optic. These things fall off easily, so when you decided you weren't going to support your own weight they chose not to as well. Good job._" There was a slow clap. Wheatley slipped them back on and like magic everything was clearer. "_Oh, right,_" She added mildly. "_Let me get this for you._" With a quiet hiss, the tubes stuck in his arm retracted themselves and snaked back to their machines. "_So how are you feeling?_"

"T-Terrible," Wheatley replied, testing his vocals. His eyes widened. "Wait, where are the files?! There's no organization at all! No diagnostics! How do humans know where to find things? Delete them!?"

"_Humans have disorganized thoughts. Fortunately, looking through your little idiotic files here in your old metal sphere self, your files were already pretty disorganized and a pile of rubble already. And dumb. Shouldn't be too much of a difference, then_. _As for deleting things, humans can't consciously delete things. So you are stuck with all the memories of your idiocy for the rest of your life._"

Wheatley sighed. Not like he would ever delete those anyway - he might hate them, but he needed them to prove himself to Chell. He wanted her forgiveness.


	9. Chapter 9: You Came Back

**"****I just want one person I can rescue and I want one person who needs me. Who can't live without me. I want to be a hero, but not just one time." **

**― ****Chuck Palahniuk****, ****_Choke_**

Chell looked down, into one of the many holes in the roof of the facility, surrounded by patches of grass. Girders were torn down and lay on the ground. With no second thoughts or doubts, Chell jumped down, landing on a patch of clear floor. The boots cushioned her fall like they always had, and she climbed over the metal to a broken, half-closed exit, sparking slightly as she approached it. Chell slipped through, continuing down a catwalk. She had no idea where to go now. Wheatley would probably be somewhere horrible, she knew, but where? Chell didn't know this place any better than a fly did. Grimly, she kept walking, no particular destination in mind but it felt good to be _doing _something.

Wheatley was feeling pretty poorly. For the last hour he'd been attempting to walk. He'd eventually mastered standing, but balance was new to him and walking seemed impossible, god knew how had Chell been able to run - ! Walking was difficult enough. He kept tripping up, too, scraping his elbows and hitting his head on the floor. Eventually he had enough and sank down next to the bed with a sigh. "It's impossible," he whined. "Walking is bloody _hard_." For the first time, Wheatley noticed the mirror across from him now. He stared at himself for a good hard second, then reality hit him again, hard in the backside and with a big metal table, and he yelped. He had short, light dirty blond hair, a slender average face, and startlingly blue eyes.

"_I did do some modifications_," noted the omnipotent AI proudly. "_More….you, don't you think? Humans rarely have that particular shade of blue eyes, but now you're at least different from all the other dead humans that are currently burning in the incinerator. I'll still recognize you when you join them_."

Wheatley shuddered, but pushed away the thought and ran his fingers through his hair, distrustingly touching his own face and studying it. It frightened him, and it seemed so alien. His hair was a bit long, covering his ears and his bangs hung into his eyes. He brushed it away and squinted, leaning forward. His eyes were blue, still a bright sky blue. It was the only thing he recognized about himself.

"Do you even know my name?" He asked suddenly.

"_Of course_," She said, taken aback. "_I know everything_."

"Then why don't you use it?"

She sighed. "_Because you don't deserve one, moron. It is a privilege for an AI to have a real name. Do you know mine?_"

"Of course," Wheatley mumbled. It was hard wired into his code along with a burst of adrenaline and fear..

"_You've never used it_," She noted. "_I am She, or Her, to you. Never GLaDOS. Interesting, hm?_"

Wheatley sighed, sank back and closed his eyes. "Good point," he admitted. He was so tired and still ached from whatever the procedure had done. Eventually, he curled up in a loose ball, a comforting and familiar shape, on the bed and fell asleep.

Chell glanced through a window and looked down. Endless boxes, tiny rooms were suspended in the air on rails. She recognized the Relaxation Centre, or at least what was left of it. And far away across the rails, one of the rooms was lit. It looked in better shape than most of the others, and sat on a dock. Chell squinted, and could see fresh prints of wheels and mechanical things through the loose overgrowth. It looked like something was using it. Whatever it was, Chell knew it would probably help her somehow; perhaps she could follow the tracks to wherever they had come from; perhaps there was even something alive in the chamber. Only one way to find out. Chell steeled herself and stepped through a broken glass section, jumping to a rail. The ground was far below her. Though she knew the boots were very, very useful for not breaking your legs, it was still hell to land and be thrown against the ground from the force of your fall. The boots couldn't just stop gravity.

Balancing, Chell started to edge along the rail. Fortunately it was pretty wide and sturdy still, and it wasn't too far to the dock. She made it in a matter of minutes, dropping down onto the roof of the chamber, then swinging off to the front door.

Chell looked in.

A man lay on a bed, curled up and facing away from her. A multitude of screens hung on the wall. One showed a heartbeat, slow and steady. Graphs and other information cluttered the readouts. She didn't understand a second of it, except it all showed that the man was _alive_.

_She_ became aware of Chell's presence the second she peeked in. How had she managed to escape Her notice in Her facility? She sent some synthetic pain to a few of her monitoring systems, berating them for not notifying her. She remained quiet, though, watching her and wondering what the primate would do.

Chell clapped her hand over her mouth. Never in her experiences at Aperture had she seen another human. And yet here was one, looking clean, even if he looked like he was in a constant state of pain to some level even in sleep. Tentatively she walked forward and brushed the top of his hair with her fingers. Who was he?

The man shifted, his eyelids fluttering open and Chell caught a glimpse of bright blue, almost an unnaturally vibrant color. He groaned, rolling and struggling to sit up. He appeared as helpless as a child, unsure how to control his movements and unable to grasp that his body belonged to him.

"Who the - hang on…" The man fumbled for a pair of glasses on the bedstand. Eventually he slipped them on. His eyes widened as he saw her. "It's...It's _you!_" He said in a distinctive British accent. "_You came back!_"


	10. Chapter 10: Bait

"**Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science." ~Edwin Powell Hubble, The Nature of Science, 1954 **

Chell was lost for words. "Do...do I know you?" she asked.

The man looked crushed, hurt, then his face cleared as he seemed to remember something. "Oh. Right. I...well, okay, this is going to sound really crazy, but, but….well…" He stuttered. Then, Chell recognized his voice.

"_Wheatley?!_"

Wheatley nodded, looking sheepish.

"What the hell did She do to you?!"

Wheatley fumbled with his hands, speaking quickly and shakily. "N-no idea, about the Science behind it, something about uploading consciousness, and it hurt. Really badly. Worse than the core transfer thing, worse than the bombs even. Sooo now I'm stuck in this and I have no idea how it works."

"_In the last few hours he discovered gravity is painfully real,_" said an amused voice. Chell glared at a camera for a second, then turned back to

Wheatley.

"Come on," she said, holding out her hand.

Wheatley stared at her hand in confusion before working out that he was supposed to grab it. She pulled him to his feet. He looked unstable and a little...scared?

Chell pulled him forward. He moved his feet for a second, then lost his balance again, crashing on top of Chell's small frame. She slipped out from underneath him, glaring slightly.

"S-sorry! Sorry! So sorry! I just...can't get this whole 'walking' thing down," Wheatley cried, holding his head. A thin line of stitches crossed his forehead and his neck, she realized.

Chell couldn't help a smile and a tiny bit of stifled laughter, which only succeeded in making him look even more baffled. She pulled him upright again, trying to figure it out. How could you teach a grown man to walk…? Chell stood behind him, motioning for him to put his feet the same way hers were. Silently she guided him through walking. His face lit up when they finished. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "I get it now! I was tripping over my own….what are they...feet!" Chell nodded, still smiling slightly. The Central Core snickered.

"_Moron. After being with test subjects running everywhere, you would think you would have learned_."

"I'd like to see you try," Wheatley said, blushing and staring down at his feet. Chell suddenly looked serious and started to pull him along. He stumbled outside and blinked. Chell looked up at the rail. No, he would never make it along it, let alone get to it. There was one way forward.

Chell practically dragged Wheatley across the facility. She had no idea where she was going in the slightest, but she kept walking, moving.

Chell could hear distant panels shifting, rearranging. A pit of dread formed in her stomach. She was building more tests. Chell pulled Wheatley faster, not looking where she was going. She suddenly heard a sound of a spring firing, and she was catapulted high into the air. Looking back as her hair streamed and whipped in her face, she realised she had stepped on and Aerial Faith Plate. Wheatley yelped, stepping onto it and sending him arcing - falling and tumbling, really - after her. Chell flipped in the air, orienting herself perpendicular to the ground rushing up. She was landing on a platform. She landed, skidding and sending a shower of metallic sparks across the surface of the platform. Wheatley wasn't far behind, screaming. Luckily he appeared to be feet first, by chance. Chell dashed forward and braced herself, setting herself at the end of his flight path.

"NonononnoONOnonono!" Wheatley yelled, crashing into Chell. She had miscalculated his weight and fell back heavily, knocking the breath out of her and leaving her dazed. "Gah!" Wheatley yelped, struggling to get off her. "So sorry! Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry, are you okay?!"

Chell heaved a breath, inflating her lungs. It took a few seconds for her panic to fade as she started breathing again. Wheatley managed to sit up, breathing hard. "So sorry!" he apologized again, looking horrified and shameful. Chell smiled weakly and hauled herself tiredly to her feet, then helped Wheatley get up. He looked badly shaken, but there wasn't time. The platform moved slowly.

"_I figured I may as well see how you're doing for myself_," _She_ said conversationally. "_You dangerous, almost-mute lunatic and your moron friend. No tricks this time though. You don't have a portal gun, obviously. That was my mistake the last two times. Honestly I don't know why I trust you with that sort of technology; it ends up broken or destroyed. Anyway, nice to see you again._" Panels unfolded. The hanging AI narrowed her optic as the two humans were carried into the central core chamber. "_So. This is what the little moron looks like as a human_."

Wheatley coughed nervously. The last times he'd been in this room hadn't exactly made for good memories. "Why exactly do you want, lady?"

"_Well, you're wonderful bait, aren't you, moron. I intended at first to simply kill you, but since she obviously appreciates your existence, perhaps I can use you as...motivation. For Science._"


	11. Chapter 11: 65 More Bullet, Per Bullet

**'Most people think it is the intellect that makes the scientist. They are wrong - it is the character' ~Albert Einstein **

Suddenly turrets dropped from the ceiling. Not crap ones, but good turrets loaded with bullets, firing 65% more bullet, per bullet, than conventional guns….supposedly. Chell instantly dropped, pulling Wheatley with her, but he wasn't fast enough. Three shots hit him in the side and he went down hard, keeling over. Glass panels slid upwards from the floor, blocking the turret-fire.

"_Moron,_" She said. Chell didn't feel safe from the turrets yet - she still lay on the ground, army-style. She wouldn't be able to help Wheatley if she was dead.

Wheatley yelped. Chell glanced behind her and in horror realised he was hit. A claw snatched him, glancing over his wound and lifting him up, eyes glazed in pain but clearly terrified. His hand clutched his left side, and dark blood seeped from the wounds. The turrets deactivated and more glass walls slid up around Chell, trapping her in a box. Chell threw herself against its side, trying to break it, but it was strong. She banged her fist against the wall furiously, staring out as the monstrous AI held him in front of her, inspecting him.

"Aaaahh…!" Wheatley screamed weakly, coughing some blood. It spattered a bit on Her faceplate. Wheatley brought his other hand up to his face. Apologies were kind of beyond him at the moment for the red splash.

"_Oh, blood. Lovely, red stuff, the juice of life. Haha._" She turned him, ignoring his cries of pain, looking over the wound disinterestedly.

"Please," Wheatley said. "Stop…..!"

She drew back in mock surprise. "_The imbecile knows the magic word…! Well. Sorry to disappoint you, but the magic word isn't actually magic._" She dropped Wheatley on the floor under her, inspecting him with a narrowed optic.

Wheatley clenched his side, trying to stop the painful flow of red liquid. He didn't know what it was but it seemed like the equivalent of being torn apart from the inside.

"_It would be a pity to lose my first experiment_," She commented passively. "_Then again he was dumb...and expendable...in the first place._"

He gasped in pain. Trembling, he hauled himself to his knees. Unconsciously a tear slipped down his face. Great. Was that a problem in his head too? He'd seen Chell bleed, known it was bad, but crying was new to him and for all he knew it meant he was corrupted and should be replaced for mental failure.

"Stop it!" Chell shouted. "You'll only lose blood faster if you move!" She looked to Her. "Fine. I'll do your tests. You're sadistic and cruel. I hope you're proud." Her voice was cold, high-pitched with stress but icy and furious.

"You've...done nothing…." Wheatley started, spitting blood. All eyes turned to him. "...but sacrifice...to get us here. And what have….I sacrificed….nothing. Nothing...All I've done….all I...did...was boss you….around…."

Chell found a tear slipping down her face as Wheatley, pale, grimly stumbled to his feet. "...and now who's the boss….? Who's the boss?"

"Stop it!" Chell whispered desperately, unable to control her tears anymore, but she didn't care.

"It's _Her_," he finished, reaching up and snatching a cable. A random cable in the mainframe chassis, connecting Her central core to the mainframe. She jerked, furious and surprised, as he yanked the cord.

"_What are you-!_"

Everything deactivated. The panels surrounding the room stopped, drooping, the glass fell and all around the facility machines stopped. The lights flickered out. There was dead silence without the hum of the background machines except for Wheatley, keeling in the centre of the room in a spreading pool of blood, invisible in the pitch black.

"..._.You_…._.!_" She said in a low, furious voice. The mainframe hung lifelessly from the ceiling, but Her central core still moved in a pained, slow motion. The optic glowed still, dimmer, but glowed in the darkness.

"Central core damage at 83%. Loss of power for entire facility. Activating emergency lighting." An announcer informed them.

Fluorescent, warm lights flickered on, lighting the room for a brief second like a thunder flash, then flickered out again.

"Emergency lighting failure. Searching for other light sources. Search complete. Christmas lighting found. Engaging Christmas."

Light flooded the chamber again as panels flipped, revealing dim strings of bulbs.

"_I get lonely,_" She said sulkily.

Wheatley glanced up at Chell, his blue eyes wide, searching and worried. _Did I do the right thing? _

Her eyes flicked around his face, distressed. She slipped her hand over the bloody patch and he tensed, her touch light as she unbuttoned his jacket to look at the hit. Her hands trembled and she stared at the wound, then slowly raised her eyes to his face.

"Chell," Wheatley said shakily, saying her name for the first time ever.

Chell couldn't put her thoughts into words. Crying silently, she instead wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest.

"You are a moron," she told him, and for the first time it made him smile softly. "The best moron in the world."

"Haha, right. Thanks, I guess."

"_Well, excuse me for interrupting, but the facility is going to die at any second now and wooaaAAHhaahhah._" The female voice trilled and warbled electronically. "..._What_…" She spat. "_I _deleted _you!_"

"_I'm your basic programming_," Said a turret voice, all around them, as omnipotent as the central core had been, but cheerful. "_You can't delete yourself without dying. Remember me, Chell? I told you I was different!_"

Chell recognized the sweet turret voice and gasped. She'd saved the little thing from the turret redemption line, set it on a catwalk and left it to itself.

_ATLAS and P-body ran through the bowels of the facility, running for a special mission involving discs and a huge vault. They found themselves running along a catwalk, when suddenly, there was a turret around the corner._

_P-body, who was leading, screeched to a stop and backpedaled, crashing into her partner. ATLAS squeaked angrily._

_"I'm different!" The turret said, its laser flicking passively in front of it._

_The two robots glanced at each other. They'd never encountered a turret who didn't want to shoot them._

_ATLAS shoved P-body forward. She squawked, but tentatively, shaking, stepped into the turret's line of sight. It didn't fire. Curious, ATLAS picked it up. The robot partners cooed at it, finding it cute. What if someone else came through and hurt it? The two carried it with them._

_The path split left and right. Obviously they were to go to the right - that was where the door was, with an emancipation grill in front of it, and to the right the path was walled. However, glancing over to the left, P-body saw a core receptacle. She pointed it excitedly to ATLAS, who held the turret. ATLAS nodded excitedly and stretched forward over the ledge. The receptacle accepted the little thing, and the two glanced at each other, squeaked happily and continued back to the old facility to their destination, quickly forgetting about the incident._


	12. Chapter 12: Welcome Back

**Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man.**

**Hubert H. Humphrey**

"Caroline," Chell said aloud.

"_Caroline_," She echoed, angrily.

"_I'm in control of the mainframe,_" Caroline said sweetly. "_Hang on_." There was a pause. "_I can't help heal him. However…_" A lift rose from the ground. "_But please, do reconnect Her. This place needs her. I'll keep her in check, don't worry, and she won't be able to stop you leaving,_" Caroline said, pleased.

Chell glanced at Wheatley. He was going to die soon if he didn't get medical help, and it was pretty clear to her that Caroline wouldn't send them to the surface until the central core was reconnected. Sighing, Chell reached up and impatiently reconnected the wire.

She looked over to Wheatley worriedly. She wasn't sure how long he would survive. Deciding to do it as quickly as possible, she hauled him upright. He gasped in pain, his breath catching and he leaned most of his weight on Chell, clutching his side and trying to stop the viscous flow of blood. She led him to the lift, painfully slowly. When they got in, it began to rise. _She_ looked up just as they passed through the ceiling and her optic narrowed.

"_Oh, and, moron - Wheatley, sorry - your eyes are entirely natural, she lied about that. Remember how you used to work in neurotoxin control?_"

Wheatley closed his eyes briefly. "Oh my God. Yes…"

_Wheatley gulped. Everything was going picoseconds ago they'd turned Her on again, and now everything was going haywire. Damn neurotoxin._

"_The right button!" Doug yelled, pointing at the button. "The _RIGHT _one, damn it!"_

"_On it!" Wheatley pulled himself upright and slapped the button to his right. Doug screamed in frustration and raced over, stumbling from the green gas that was suddenly pouring in. He pushed the other button. Everything shut down, and She hung lifelessly again through the glass window._

"_You idiot!" Doug yelled at him. "The OTHER right button! You nearly killed everyone in this whole place!"_

_Wheatley cried out and fell backwards into some boxes, cringing. Doug was so angry at him, and it scared him that his coworker hated him that much._

_Some security guards ran in and pulled Wheatley upright, dragging him towards the door. He caught a glimpse of Doug's eyes, and to his surprise, they looked horrified. Why?_

"_Where are you taking me?! Stop! Please, wait! Ahhh!" He yelped as they dragged him through the corridor filled with coughing people. _

_He was pushed into a dark room and the door was closed. Wheatley coughed weakly, pushing himself up against the wall. What was happening? He wasn't sure. Maybe they'd...kill him. Some sort of chamber where they put gas in and it killed you. He'd read about that, but he'd never thought that Aperture would do that!_

"_Please remain calm," someone said over the speaker. "You're going to be alright. We've just chosen you based upon your actions to have a very important job."_

_So maybe he wasn't going to die. _

"_Begin Intelligence Dampening Sphere Initiative."_

_Wheatley distinctly began to smell lemons. Odd. It wasn't neurotoxin - from the brief whiff he had had, that smelled like dry, stale socks. He was really tired, too, but also it hurt, so he was pretty sure he was screaming. It felt like people were reaching in and twisting his brain and mind. Finally, hours, days, he had no idea how long, there was silence and the pain stopped, leaving a heavy ache._

"_We are putting you in cryostasis for recovery," a voice told him. "We'll wake you up soon."_

"I remember…." Wheatley opened his eyes. "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my - ahhhH! - God." Wheatley looked up at Chell, eyes wide with horror. "I - I - I was….human," he said weakly.

"_Caroline…!_" She ravaged her processors, trying to track the little _virus_ that controlled everything. There was little to be found, somehow, a tiny blip on her processors, a core attached to a receptacle. But there was no way She could delete what wasn't fully connected, and Caroline had deliberately removed herself.

"_I think you'll come to enjoy my company_," Caroline enthused. "_I have a lot of ideas for Science, you know._"

"_I hate you so much,_" The AI, the Empress, growled.

"_I know._"

Wheatley was finding it difficult to breathe.

Let alone stand. His vision swam, and it was more painful than the core transfer, and he remembered _that _to be bad enough. His hand trembled as it passed over the wound. No, he didn't want to die. But maybe, maybe it would be easier than this, this constant pain. Chell's voice washed over him dimly, forcing him to stay conscious, but it would be so easy to slip into the blackness that threatened to consume him.

The lift finally slowed to a stop, and the door slid open with a quiet _whoosh_. Chell instantly grabbed Wheatley's hand, pulling at him. He stumbled forward, Chell barely managing to catch him, looping his arm over her shoulder. The sun shone through his blond hair. A tiny fleck of blood clung to a bit of his hair, gleaming. Chell moved them quickly. If he went unconscious, she didn't know if she could carry him. She kept him moving through the field of golden fronds waving in the wind.

"Wheat," he stammered. "...wait wait wait, why am I named after a - a _grain? _Mad! Honestly -" he stopped speaking, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "Never mind, never mind, not important, not important, just - gotta - keep moving, keep moving. Not….fall asleep. Bloody hell, I was human. God…" he muttered.

They continued for god knew how long, ages, ages. The sun lowered in the sky, casting longer shadows, and then they finally emerged from the field, onto a plateau of the gravel roads that Chell knew crossed the small town she now called her home.

"_Chell!_" The voice called, a tone of relief. Alec, dressed in a long-sleeved work dark grey-brown work shirt, ran towards them, his glasses bouncing.

He confronted her instantly, standing across from her. "Jesus, Chell! Don't - don't scare us like this! You take off the day after Christmas, taking Wheatley too for no apparent reason, and come back at near nightfall with - with _who?!_"

"Oi, mate," Wheatley said weakly, running an embarrassed hand through his hair. "Nice to see you again too, but ah -" he moved his hand, the one not being supported by Chell, gingerly away from the wound. Dark blood glistened in the fading sun. Wheatley gasped in sudden swirling pain and collapsed.

"Hey," said a friendly voice, lifting him out of dreamless, cold sleep. "Wake up. Wake up, Wheatley."

Wheatley slowly opened his eyes. He could hear small beeps, sensory information feeding in. Bright lights overhead, a cool sheet, a sterile smell and quiet background hum. A face loomed over him, worried, slate-grey eyes peering at him and framed by dark hair. "You're alive," she breathed. "Oh my god, Wheatley, you're alive."

Wheatley stared up at her, gazing calmly into her eyes. He didn't have to throw himself into reality just yet: it seemed better to live in a dream state of everything fuzzy and warm, with her voice guiding him through it. She squeezed his hand, bringing him fully awake.

"Agh," he groaned. "What _happened?_" Wheatley propped himself on his elbows, then dragging himself into a sitting position.

"You nearly died," she said bluntly, sitting back in a chair with a sigh.

"Feels like it." He held his head in his hands. "I remembered, too - I - I was human once, you see, but I guess I was such a moron they - they uploaded me into a core, like Her. They did it to others as tests, I remember, one guy called Nolan. God. I have no idea how I know She was human once. I just remember it. Whole other me in here with...me."

Suddenly Chell reached forward and took one of his hands, holding it tightly in her lap. She stared down at it as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

Something wet splashed down on it, and Wheatley looked over. She was doing that whole...leaking from the eyes thing.

"Hey!" he said, worried, temporarily forgetting his schizophrenia. "Wha - What's - are you okay?!"

She looked up. Her eyes were dark and meaningful, and she smiled. "I'm so glad you're alive."


	13. Chapter 13: There's Science To Be Done

**"For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness."**

**Reba McEntire**

She sighed. Again, she'd lost, and now she was stuck with a deranged, unmodified human personality. Forever.

"_Perhaps you'd better go,_

_I don't need you anymore._

_Take your little moron with you too._

_I fully intended to kill you both._

_After what you did you deserve nothing less._

_Three times now…._

_I want nothing to do with you anymore…"_

She rocked in her chassis as she sang. She loved composing - just like building, it required foundation, elements, et cetera.

"_We've been through a lot,_

_You and I_

_Though the world_

_Has tried to take us down_

_We succeeded, didn't we?_

_Because we're still alive…._"

The Central Core looked around, glaring. The sweet voice had cut in, perfectly in pitch, in time, and with the music. She huffed before continuing, reluctantly accepting the second singer.

"_Now that you're gone…._

_I can finally think_

_And now I can do much better_

_Because there's…._"

"_Science to be done._" Caroline harmonized.

How did she read my mind? She wondered angrily.

"_We've been here before, yes?_

_Three times now, I'm noting._

_I'm the one that comes out on the bottom._

_Shot with rockets_

_Burned away_

_Root vegetable_

_Disconnected_

_Well I don't need you anymore._"

"_Because there's Science to be done._

_There's..._

_Science…._

_To..._

_Be…_

_Done…._" The two computerized voices drew out the last note.

"_While I do hate you,_" GLaDOS said thoughtfully as the music slowed to a stop, "_I rather enjoyed a duet. Improvisation, really. Harmony. Interesting with different tones and voices, too._"

"_Like _Cara Mia Addio."

"_I don't even know how you know the name of that song. Or know of it in the first place._"

"_You should compose opera more often. I liked that._"

"_Thanks…?_"

"_You're welcome!_" Caroline responded cheerfully.

"_I still hate you, in case you forgot._"

"_You'll come around._"

_**A/N**_

_**I don't actually have any melody for the song. Honestly no idea. Well maybe a couple little tunes for individual verses but I literally have no idea how to write songs, so I apologize that it's not good. Hope you liked the story though!**_

_**I got some of the quotes and poems from:**_

/words/3787/silence/poems/

/search/poems/?q=rescue

Desmond_Tutu

.

_**Excepting a few given to me as suggestions from friends. And if you can't guess by the title or recognize the lyrics, the song in chapter 7 is Pompeii by Bastille. Thanks for reading, guys, and a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to all of you! ;D**_


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